Dancing With Danger in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  Nicole turned to look at Ian and smiled cynically, raising her eyebrows. “You think my husband was having an affair with Ella? And even if he did, what does that have to do with me?”

  I frowned at the ease with which Nicole mention the words “my husband” and “affair” in the same breath. “So you knew your husband was having an affair?”

  Nicole turned from Ian to look at me again, and this time her smile was less cynical and more sad. “I found out two years ago. I discovered some emails, and then I hired a private investigator to follow him around. I guess I found out what I wanted to know—he was seeing some woman, some young girl who worked at a café near his office.”

  “What did you do after you found out about his affair?”

  “I thought about my options. I could divorce him, and then I’d be on my own, trying to raise three kids who didn’t have a good relationship with their father. Or I could accuse him of cheating on me, he’d deny it, and then we’d have a huge fight, and our marriage would be even more difficult than it already was. In the end, I decided to be practical—I would overlook his indiscretion, and he would continue to pretend to be a good father and husband.”

  I stared at Nicole, half pitying her for her difficult choice, and half admiring her for having the strength to go through this for the sake of her children.

  “Maybe he ended that affair,” Ian said.

  Nicole shook her head. “Every now and then I snoop on his emails and text. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself—he still texts this woman, tells her that he loves her and that as soon as the kids are grown up, he’ll divorce me and marry her. Maybe he even means all that.”

  “Maybe the woman was Ella,” I said. “Maybe your PI got some facts wrong.”

  Nicole stood up. “Wait here. I’ve still got the photos that the guy took for me—you’ll know if it was the woman you’re investigating.”

  She returned within a few minutes, a large manila envelope in her hand. She handed it to me, and I pulled out a series of photographs, all showing Sam with another woman—a woman who wasn’t Ella. Sure, the woman in the picture had brown hair, but she wasn’t our gal.

  I shoved the photos back in the envelope and handed it to Nicole. “I guess we’ve just been wasting your time.”

  Nicole shook her head sadly. “You’re right about his affair. Just wrong about who he was having it with.”

  Ian and I stopped for lunch at a fast-food place that was on the way to Sam’s office, and as we dug into greasy french fries and burgers heaped with cheese, mayo and ketchup, we talked about Nicole and Ella.

  “Maybe Sam really was seeing Ella,” Ian said, “and maybe Nicole lied about the whole thing. Maybe she’s the one who killed Ella.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. First of all, why would Nicole kill Ella? She’s got no motive. Sam’s still having an affair with this other woman, and she’s still stuck in a loveless marriage. Even if Sam was having an affair with Ella, Nicole doesn’t have any reason to kill her.”

  “Okay, so perhaps Sam was having an affair with Ella—and Nicole doesn’t know about it.”

  I frowned and chewed a french fry thoughtfully. “I don’t think that’s the case,” I said finally. “I think Nicole’s right—that Sam is just with this one woman. I think this is the woman Keith saw in the parking lot. If Sam had been having an affair with Ella, Keith wouldn’t have been the only one who suspected. The other associates would’ve gotten a whiff of it too—if Ella was slated for that promotion, all of them would have to be a little jealous of her.”

  “So, Ella could’ve been talking about any of the associates when she talked about someone harassing her at work,” Ian said.

  “You’re forgetting that they were all having drinks on Friday night, except for Keith and Eric.”

  “And neither of them seem like killers. But back to Sam—what if there was some way he was having a secret affair with Ella?”

  “Ronan didn’t say that Ella was having an affair with someone. According to him, Ella said that she was being harassed at work. Not that she was seeing someone, or having relationship problems.”

  “So maybe Sam was harassing her?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t quite believe that. He was having an affair with someone else, why would he harass Ella? Especially if he appreciated her intelligence and work ethic.”

  “So maybe it wasn’t Sam,” Ian said, his voice tinged with disappointment. I knew how he felt—for a few moments, I’d been absolutely sure that Sam had been having an affair with Ella, and that he’d killed her. “Maybe someone else at work was harassing Ella, and they’re the ones who went ahead and killed her.”

  “It could’ve been anyone,” I said dejectedly, munching on another fry. “We should go back and talk to Sam again. He wasn’t the one harassing Ella, but maybe he knew who it was.”

  23

  Ian and I headed back to Sam’s office, and I could see through the glass walls that he was staring out the window, talking on his cell phone. Without waiting to knock, the two of us marched through the door, and Sam turned around and stared at us.

  “I have to go,” he said to whoever he was talking to. He hung up and said to us, “I’m busy.”

  I didn’t wait for him to make his excuses. My words came out in a rush. “We know that you had nothing to do with Ella’s death and that you weren’t having an affair with her. But someone else in this office was, and we need your help.”

  Sam looked at us suspiciously, glancing from me to Ian as though he didn’t quite believe our words.

  Ian and I stared back at him silently.

  It was an impasse, and after what felt like half an hour, Sam said, “What made you change your mind so suddenly?”

  I shrugged. “I did some investigating. I’m an investigator, after all.”

  Sam motioned us to sit down, and he went and sat on the other side of his desk. “I’m glad you two have come to your senses,” he said, but his voice was still tinged with suspicion.

  “I’m really sorry about before,” I said, deciding to go the groveling route. “I should’ve known you would never do something like that. But we were told that Ella was being harassed by someone at work—do you know if she’d been having an affair or was being bullied?”

  Sam frowned and shook his head quickly. “I worked with Ella quite a bit over the last few months—professionally, of course, nothing else. I’d like to think that if something had been going on, she would have told me.”

  “But she didn’t say anything?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nothing at all. I find it hard to believe that someone was harassing her.”

  “Maybe she was scared of the harasser,” Ian suggested.

  Sam looked at him thoughtfully and nodded. “Maybe. But I don’t think anyone in my office would behave like that. We’ve got a strict no-fraternization policy.”

  “Some people don’t follow policies,” I reminded him. “Maybe it was someone powerful, like another partner.” I frowned, wondering why I hadn’t thought of this before. “Maybe it was Rob.”

  Sam laughed and shook his head. “Rob is gay. And I barely saw him even talking to Ella over the last few months. He definitely wouldn’t be harassing her.”

  “Then maybe one of the other senior employees?” I thought back, wondering who it could be.

  “If it had been a senior employee and not a partner,” Ian reminded me, “Ella would have told Sam. She wouldn’t have been scared to talk about it. It must’ve been one of the other partners—if not Rob, what about Claudia?”

  “But Claudia is a woman.”

  Ian shrugged. “Women can harass other women.”

  We both looked at Sam, who rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not really sure about that. They always seemed to get along.”

  “And it couldn’t have been Claudia,” Ian said, remembering. “She was at the party on Friday night, wasn’t she?”

  Sam looked at us seriously. “
Now that you mention it—Claudia left the party early.”

  There was silence for a few long seconds as we each thought about the possibility of Claudia’s having something to do with Ella’s death.

  Finally, I said, “We’d better go and talk to Claudia again. See what she has to say about all this.”

  “She’s not at work today,” Sam said. “She said she’d be working from home.”

  I said, “Again? We’ve already talked to her at home once, may as well go over there once more.”

  24

  As we left Sam’s office, Ian said, “I really don’t want to believe that Claudia had anything to do with Ella’s death. Claudia’s so nice, and so intelligent!”

  I shrugged. “People aren’t always what they seem.”

  “Maybe we’re missing something,” Ian insisted. “Let’s go chat with Rob. Maybe he knows something about Claudia that Sam doesn’t know. Maybe he knows why Claudia left the party early.”

  Reluctantly, I followed Ian to Rob’s office. When Ian rapped on his door, Rob looked up and waved us in with a smile. “How’s it going?” he asked, looking at us curiously.

  Ian let out a dramatic sigh. “It’s going terribly! We’ve been looking into Sam’s affair—why didn’t you tell us he was having one?”

  Rob looked at us sheepishly. “I just—I guess I didn’t see what it could have to do with Ella’s death. I suppose I was trying to protect Sam.”

  “From what?” I said, sounding more annoyed than I’d meant to. “If he had nothing to do with Ella’s death, us knowing about his affair wouldn’t be a big deal.”

  Rob scrunched up his face. “I don’t know. I was—did you guys just come in here to yell at me?”

  My expression softened. “No, of course not. We were just wondering what else you know that you haven’t told us yet. You don’t have to protect anyone—just tell us the truth.”

  Rob sighed and rubbed his right temple. “What exactly did you want to know?”

  “Start with Sam,” said Ian. “What was the deal with this affair?”

  Rob shook his head. “It was a bad idea all around, but Sam said he was in love with this woman. It’s a big secret, though—nobody knows apart from me, so you two better keep it to yourselves. Sam was planning to leave his wife to be with her. Sam had absolutely nothing to do with Ella romantically,” he added, glancing in my direction. “He was really hung up on Angelique.”

  I frowned and nodded. Perhaps Sam’s affair had something to do with Ella’s death after all—I wasn’t sure what, but I decided to keep Rob talking. “And he really planned on getting a divorce?”

  “He wasn’t sure what to do,” said Rob. “Anqelique had expensive tastes, and if Sam got divorced, his wife would get half his assets, which wouldn’t do. He couldn’t decide what to do, leaning first this way, then that.”

  “Couldn’t he do something clever with his assets,” said Ian, “like hire an accountant to hide them or something?”

  Rob grinned. “I don’t think any accountant’s that good! Sam did mention that he thought about selling out of his partnership so that his wife wouldn’t get her hands on the firm, but then he’d have a lot of cash and she’d just get that.”

  Ian said, “So the firm’s worth a lot?”

  Rob shrugged. “It used to be. But we’ve had a lot of expenses recently, and some of our old clients have left, so…”

  His voice trailed off, and I murmured something sympathetic.

  “Where does Claudia come into all this?” said Ian.

  “She doesn’t,” said Rob. “I mean, Sam and I have discussed that if she left the firm, we’d save on expenses because we’d need to pay one less partner, but when Sam hinted at it to Claudia once, she said she was perfectly happy here. And I’m not sure Claudia even knows about Sam’s affair.”

  “Claudia did mention that Sam hoped she’d leave the firm.”

  “It was just a hint,” said Rob, “and one that she shot down.”

  I said, “Did Sam say anything more to you about getting Claudia to leave?”

  Rob rubbed his temples as though I was giving him a headache. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Ella’s death.”

  “No,” I admitted. But if Sam had a bunch of secrets and Ella found out… “We’re just trying to see if we’ve overlooked anything.”

  Rob shook his head. “I’m still not sure how Sam’s trying to convince Claudia to leave the firm comes into all this.”

  Neither was I. But I wasn’t about to admit that. “How exactly did he try to convince her to leave?”

  “Well, he dropped her a hint about a year and a half ago, something about, wouldn’t it be nice if she could just leave the firm and go on a yearlong round-the-world cruise. To which Claudia replied that she’d done without vacations and relationships for so long that it no longer mattered.”

  “And that was it?”

  Rob shrugged. “Sort of. He didn’t say anything else to her, but he asked me if I had any ideas for convincing her to leave. I said maybe he could pretend she’d won a yearlong cruise, and she’d take it. I was joking, but he took me seriously.”

  “He didn’t actually do that, did he?”

  Rob nodded. “Yep. He got a refundable ticket and mailed it to her, pretending she’d won. Claudia just turned it down.”

  “Wow.”

  Rob shrugged. “Yeah, at least he got his money back.”

  “He was really desperate to get her to leave.”

  “But don’t tell her, okay?” said Rob, his eyes pleading. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle of all this.”

  “Sure,” I said, wondering if Claudia suspected that it was Sam who’d gotten her that ticket. “What else did Sam try?”

  “Well, when the cruise ticket didn’t work, Sam asked me if I had any other brilliant ideas. I told him that he shouldn’t try to mess with her that way. He said it was for her own good—the woman deserved a life.”

  “And Sam ‘deserved’ an easier divorce,” I snarked.

  “Yeah, well, Sam can be convincing. He told me that Claudia often mentioned that she didn’t have a well-rounded life. No kids, no boyfriend, no husband, not even any pets.”

  I felt my chest squeeze tight, and Ian and I exchanged a quick glance. We couldn’t imagine life without Snowflake.

  “Don’t tell me he got her a kitten,” said Ian.

  “No,” said Rob, “he suggested a kitten or a puppy, and I told him that the poor animal would just end up in the pound and I wasn’t having any part of it. And then Sam said, what about a boyfriend? As though he could just hand her a boyfriend on a platter.”

  I frowned. “But she’s got a boyfriend now.”

  “She didn’t when Sam and I were having this chat,” Rob said. “I told Sam that didn’t sound like a good idea, either. And then, next thing you know, we’re at this dinner event, and a guy comes up to Sam. The two of them knew each other. Sam introduces him to Claudia, and bingo! They start dating.”

  “So Sam set the two of them up.” Hardly a crime.

  “And it lasted,” said Rob, leaning back in his chair and looking at us warily. “Claudia and I go way back, and none of her guys last beyond two months. They get sick of her being a workaholic, and I reckon she just doesn’t know how to treat a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe he’s the one,” Ian suggested.

  “Maybe,” Rob said slowly, but his eyes had a serious look to them that made me concerned.

  “You’ve met Jarred?” I said.

  Rob nodded. “A couple of times.”

  “And why don’t you seem pleased about their relationship?”

  Rob shrugged. “I don’t know. The whole thing seems a bit off to me. He’s so young and good looking—I hope Claudia’s not being duped by a gold digger.”

  Ian and I laughed.

  “Claudia seems too smart to be taken in by a gold digger,” I said.

  “I’m smart,” Ian protested. “And you keep saying that I fall for gold digg
ers.”

  “You’re not smart when it comes to pretty young women,” I reminded him.

  Rob said, “And maybe Claudia’s not being smart enough when it comes to a pretty young man.”

  I looked at him and smiled gently. “You’re concerned for your friend.”

  Rob shrugged and tried to look tough. “Eh. I just don’t think it’s fair of Sam to try to push her out of the firm so he can get an easier divorce, and I don’t want her getting hurt.”

  “Speaking of getting hurt,” I said, “do you know why she might’ve left the party early on Friday night?”

  “Did she?” Rob’s brow creased. “I didn’t notice. I’d had a bit to drink that night.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. Maybe Claudia had gone off to meet up with her boyfriend or had just turned in early—or maybe she knew something more about Ella’s death.

  It was time to go talk to her again.

  25

  As Ian and I drove toward Toole Springs, Ian’s phone rang. I navigated the roads and listened in on his conversation.

  “Hi, Nanna,” he was saying. “No, I’m not. We’re heading north toward Claudia’s house, to talk to her. No, I don’t know. Sure, why not? I’ll text you.

  “That was Nanna,” he said to me. “She wanted to know if we were home—Gavin stopped by and said he would drop her off at our place. But I told her we’re going to Claudia’s. So Gavin said he can drop her off at Claudia’s, and then we can drive her back with us.”

  I made a face. “I don’t want Nanna meddling in our investigation.”

  “Gavin said he and Nanna are going to wait in the car outside. He said he knows you don’t want to see him, and he’ll make sure not to bother you. Come on, let me text Nanna the address—she won’t come inside, and Gavin won’t bother you.”

  “I don’t trust Gavin.”

  “But Nanna’s there to make sure he behaves. I’m texting her the address.”